Recently, experts showed a magical space concept map, this picture accidentally caught fire! The picture shows multiple blue "small squares" flying towards a giant space rock, which is the "solar sail spaceship" that people will build in the future, and the giant space rock is the mysterious interstellar visitor Oumuamua.
The experts' intentions are already obvious, trying to build a solar sail spaceship, which can then be used to catch up with Oumuamua and complete the desire to explore interstellar visitors.
Speaking of Oumuamua, I believe that everyone is not unfamiliar, in 2017, a mysterious celestial god unknowingly approached the sun and the earth, it is a pity that astronomers did not find it in time, until the acceleration away from the sun, and the earth millions of kilometers away, it was accidentally captured by astronomical telescopes.
Astronomers were surprised to find that OuMua turned out to be interstellar visitors, from interstellar space outside the solar system, and what was even more surprising was its shape, 400 meters long, 40 meters wide, and the length-width ratio reached 10:1, like a huge stick, which should be the most bizarre celestial body ever discovered by human beings.
This is not to mention, Oumuamua has a dark red surface, still rotating, a "stick" that rotates automatically, so some people simply regard Oumuamua as a "Ruyi Golden Hoop Stick", of course, this is just a metaphor.
What exactly did Omuamoo go through, and what forces made Aumua's shape so strange? Is it really an "alien spaceship" visiting Earth? We don't know that the appearance of Oumuamua has aroused great interest among scientists, hoping to encounter small objects like Oumuamua again.
Some scientists have put forward the idea of opening their minds: they hope to quickly build a spaceship to catch up with Omomo, if you build a spacecraft now, launch it in a few years, you can catch up with Oumuar, who is fleeing the solar system, as early as 2047, and take a look at it.
This brain-opening idea was actually taken seriously by a scientific team, a space project called "Lyra Project" was born because of this idea, and the Lyra Project is working hard to build ultra-high-speed starships, in order to catch up with the interstellar visitor Ou Momo.
Do you know? Oumuamua broke into the solar system at a speed of 27 kilometers per second, pulled by the strong gravitational pull of the sun, Andimom was getting faster and faster, and finally passed through the inner side of Mercury's orbit at a speed of 300,000 kilometers per hour, much faster than the speed of any celestial body in the solar system, and the average interstellar speed when leaving the solar system reached 95,000 kilometers per hour.
This is the famous gravitational slingshot effect, Oumuamua is through the gravitational slingshot effect, the speed suddenly increased to 156,000 kilometers per hour, artificial spacecraft want to catch up with Oumuamua This is not an easy task, from the earth to take off speed of at least 262,000 km or more, that is, 72.7 km / s.
For an artificial spacecraft to reach such a fast speed, it would definitely take a lot of energy, either to design a flawless flight path, fly over multiple planets, and then increase the speed through the gravitational slingshot effect, or use the hypothetical solar sail propulsion, or use laser propulsion, or use a conventional chemical engine.
Although photons are a substance that cannot be captured, when light illuminates a substance, when the photon hits the surface of the material, it can indeed generate pressure, but the thrust is too small, much smaller than the ion thruster, and the solar sail propulsion is a propulsion system that obtains thrust with light pressure for a long time.
However, solar light sails also have the biggest advantage, that is, they can always accelerate the spacecraft for free, because whether in interstellar space or in the solar system, there are a large number of photons, which can accelerate the solar light sail spacecraft at any time.
So, this is the very beginning of a space concept map, interstellar visitor Aumamua has been flying forward, artificial solar sail spaceship in the back of the chase, because the artificial solar sail spaceship is getting faster and faster, one day will catch up with the interstellar visitor AoMo, and take a look at it. Interesting and informative scientific content, please pay attention to the only WeChat public account: Interesting Exploration